Talk:Zionism/Archive 19

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"re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel" and homeland

An attempt to summarize the long winded discussions above:

  • "Re-establishment" doesn't refer to any specific historical state, but to a general sense that Jews came from the region. The fact that Jews and Judaism are defined in their name by the region of Judea, a region which was not included in 1948 Israel, is deemed irrelevant.
  • When searching google books for re-established vs established, the latter outnumbers the former many times over. And not just by quantity but by quality. Most of the books using "established" are history books, whereas "re-established" is found mostly in theological works.
  • Whilst the concept of "homeland" has been shown to be considered by academics as a deeply partisan nationalistic concept, it is proposed that Jewish nationalism is different and more ancient than other nationalisms and the concept of a homeland in Judaism has existed forever. No evidence has been provided for this, but it is deemed to be correct because it feels like common sense.

Is my summary missing anything? Oncenawhile (talk) 10:19, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

  • "Re-establishment" refers not to a "general sense", but to a concrete fact that ancestors of the Jews lived in the region. The name of the Jews indeed comes from the region of Judea, but the area inhabited by ancestors of modern Jews changed over time and at certain periods covered much larger area.
  • I had no chance to check thousands of books using the terms "established" or "re-established" to assess the kind of works they represent. I wonder how you managed to read them all so quickly. Even if you did, it would be original research and therefore useless. My guess is that many of the books that avoid the term "re-established" are partisan works opposed to Zionism.
  • Opinions that some researchers share with you is not "shown to be considered by academics". Drsmoo provided multiple quotes from primary or secondary sources showing how Jews considered themselves to be a nationality, and Judaism's connection to its homeland, but apparently it's "no evidence" for you.
Your summary lacks correctness, otherwise it's nice. WarKosign 11:29, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
@WarKosign:I personally wouldn't waste my time with people not interested in learning, especially after consensus has been established in favor of re-established. As you can see there was no actual rebuttal to the quotes I posted, of which there are infinitely more. The current discussion obviously has nothing to do with Zionism which is why I proposed it be moved to the wikiproject Judaism talk page. Drsmoo (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
Where do you get the idea that consensus has been established in favor of re-established? nableezy - 19:02, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
@WarKosign:
  • "the area inhabited ... over time" is not the same as a "homeland". German people inhabited much of Eastern Europe for centuries but it isn't considered part of the Germanic homeland
  • As Makeandtoss says, google's statistics are very powerful. If you look at the links provided by Monochrome above, you just have to look at the top 10 or 20 books of each to see a very significant difference
  • I know the thread is hard to follow but Drsmoo's quotes have been thoroughly discredited. Two by looking at the original Hebrew, and one by confirming that the quote did not reflect mainstream thought. So there really is no evidence.
Oncenawhile (talk) 15:38, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
Google does the reading for you. [1], [2] Makeandtoss (talk) 11:56, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
That is strong prima facie evidence for the fact that 're-establishing' is rare, pointed usage, whereas 'establishing' is the default term. The state Israel established in any case in 1948 was, as Steven Runciman once remarked ironically, not in the classic territory of Israel (Judea, and perhaps Samaria) but in Philistia. Nishidani (talk) 12:28, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
WarKoSign. I hate these arguments, firstly because they are never resolved through the standard precedures of evidence (2) give some editors a sense that there is a ganging up attitude against Israel or Jews, that must be resisted (3) experience shows that the definitions given (Jews) are irremovable - enough editors can block any attempt to suggest an intelligent modification of what is a standard article of secular faith these days. therefore remonstrating that it is unencyclopedic is futile.
The idea of Judaism as a 'nationality' came late, and predominantly by reacting to the European wave of nationalisms.Zionism drove the change from the religious definition of Judaism current down to the 19th century, to the ethnonationalist concept, in perfect mimesis of Western ethno-nationalist ideology:'Zionists defined the Jews as a nation in order to destroy the exclusive authority of the rabbinate to say what a good Jew was.'; It is an absolutely typical remark for a 19th century rabbi likeIsidore Loeb to remark at the time that:'nothing proves that the present-day Jews who reside in most of the European states are the descendants of the ancient Jews of Palestine and strictly of the Semitic race'(‘Reflections on the Jews,’ in Mitchell Bryan Hart (ed.) Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880-1940, UPNE, 2011 pp.12-20 p.17.); British Jewry opposed the Balfour Declaration by asserting the standard view of 19th century orthodox rabbinical thought in Western Europe: Judaism was a religion not a nationality, they agreed; the conflict between the orthodox religious definition and the secular Zionist nationalist definition was endemic before 1948: Joseph Neusner puts it nicely, the Jews in israel are a nation (after 1948), the Jews in diaspora are a religious community.
So, anyone who asserts Jews have always been a nation/nationality is (a)ignorant of the history of the concept or (b) repeating what one was told as a child in school.Nishidani (talk) 12:24, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
The conception of Jews as a nation is rooted in actual nationhood and the hebrew bible. Zionism is just one form of jewish nationalist thought. Since early medieval times when european nations were born Jews were considered a "nation among nations", resident aliens, and they identified as part of the jewish nation. The conception of jews as merely a religious community is a modern haskalic idea, Jews only began to identify more with their state than the jewish nation after their emancipation. Zionism did not create jewish nationhood, it reawakened it. The quotes you cite are part of a late 19th-early 20th century debate on the nature of jewish collectivity. They do not reflect jewish identity pre-1800.[3]--Monochrome_Monitor 04:04, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Case in point. Anyone who asserts otherwise is (a) ignorant of the history of the concept or (b) reading shlomo sand.--Monochrome_Monitor 04:08, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
"reading shlomo sand"
This is just an ad hominem, ergo worthless. --BowlAndSpoon (talk) 22:38, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, I think a good compromise between re-establish and establish, one that recognizes jewish history in the land while not claiming direct lineal connection to that history, is "establishment of a modern jewish homeland" or something akin to that. The wording isn't perfect.--Monochrome_Monitor 04:13, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

That's a reasonable compromise. As to your argument, further up, citing Witherby (that is a philosemitic attack on Napoleon's ambition to naturalize the Jews as French and assure them some reconnection to Palestine.No! That's a mission Providence assigns to our Protestant England - it's a fanciful dialogue, by an Anglican, not testimony to what 'Jews' thought), or making large-scale generalizations ('jewish identity pre-1800') is pointless, such phrasing is as meaningless as 'catholic identity pre-1800'/'French identity pre-1800'/Buddhist identity pre-1800 etc,.etc. People in the pre-modern period followed their particular local traditions, and did not conceive of a generic identity of this kind embracing all under one ethnic or sectarian banner. Pre-1800 means what religious texts say that can be taken as referring to a 'Jewish identity', not whatever 'Mountain Jews', 'Berber Jews', 'Yemeni Jews', 'French Jews', etc. actually thought. One doesn't use Catholic clerical texts down to the period of, say,Maria Edgeworth to imagine what the 'Irish' thought. The result would be utter nonsense for what the various Irish communities, riven as they were, might have thought from one period to another. Nishidani (talk) 10:40, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
  • How about we end this lengthy discussion and focus on one important thing. Whether the article will use "establishment" or "re-establishment" will only depend on its usage by reliable sources, discussing history and quoting random Jews won't help. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:25, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Different regions of france make different wines, that doesn't mean the wine isn't french. Jews had their own minhags but they were all Israelites and their literature shows they identified with one another as such. Anyway I used an english source to show how jews were perceived as foreigners in the countries they lived- and jewish sources at the time are mostly yiddish, which I'm not particularly well versed in. But translations are available for many medieval jewish texts if you bother to look.--Monochrome_Monitor 19:01, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
I don't really find Jewish history interesting, so I won't bother to indulge in its details. In the meantime, we have Zionism; a modern political movement. You might say that this movement is also formed by Jewish history, but who exactly are we to dig up history and form our own conclusions? Since we are on Wikipedia, the definition of Zionism should be given by reliable sources. All we have to do is search for what the sources say, we are literally discussing 2 letters. Makeandtoss (talk) 19:56, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Encylopedia britanica's definition:

"Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel)."--Monochrome_Monitor 21:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

[4], [5] Makeandtoss (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2016 (UTC) Unless you want to base Wikipedia upon Britannica Makeandtoss (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

"re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel"
Again, the nationalist fantasy begins right in the outset. Sovereignty? "It too is a modern invention. … [T]he concept of sovereignty was beyond [medieval jurists …] [T]he appearance of this abstract concept, which relegates the 'sovereign' to the status of a mere servant of the state, signals the emergence of modern political understanding." This is taken from a review in the current edition of the London Review of Books.

Again: the very concept of sovereignty did not even exist until the sixteenth century – so how the hell can it have existed thousands of years ago? And so how can this Jewish sovereignty have been reestablished in the 20th century? Just completely absurd. The typical nationalistic fantasies and ignorance on display here are both absolutely stunning and completely tedious. --BowlAndSpoon (talk) 22:34, 15 June 2016 (UTC) You're talking about the westphalian conception of the right to sovereignty. That it not the same thing as nationhood in the sense of an ethnos. The latter is ancient. Anyway, I don't particularly care what you have to say considering your hateful bona fides.--Monochrome_Monitor 00:00, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Zionism, Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews

Unhistorical and ideological meme repetition. The primary aim of Zionism was for Jews to have a homeland, an autonomous nation anywhere -Uganda, Argentina, you name it. It quickly pushed for Palestine, but the purpose was to get a life free of anti-Semitic harassment. Palestine was not the ancient homeland of the Jews. It was the religious heartland of Judaism. Jews, like Phoenicians, their cousins, have always moved around, and you are confusing the religious ideology that has become a cultural property of a Jewish tradition, with the complexities of history. In 4,000 years (Netanyahu's frame of reference) Israelites/proto Jews exercised unchallenged sovereignty over part of that land arguably for a few hundred years. Geographically this was inevitable, because like all crossroads in history, it cannot avoid being the zone of conflict of empires north, south, east and west. A compromise was suggested, and you are complicating it by insisting the usual religious clichés form part of the language.Nishidani (talk) 14:41, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
Can I ask what exactly the disagreement here is about, pertinent to the article? Is it merely disputing whether the result of Zionism constituted an establishment or a re-establishment? BabyJonas (talk) 04:42, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
@BabyJonas: Yes, but goals as well as results. WarKosign 07:28, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
The issue is, can one state in wikipedia's neutral voice the words used in a specific political movement's programme, describing its project as the 're-establishment' rather than (as many editors think better sources, and neutral) the establishment of the Jews in Palestine. It is contested also 're-establishment of Jews in their ancestral homeland' is contrafactual, because, though Judaism has intense religious, cultural and also ethnic ties to the Middle East/Near East, to specify an unknown as a truth (excluding conversion and the vagaries of history) the ultra-fideistic view that all Jews have a direct or indirect line of biological descent from the Jews who once dwelt in ancient Israel's various kingdoms is unproven, and unprovable. In the Babylonian Talmud, for example, you can find the view that Babylonia is the homeland of the Jews, and that the Shekinah is there, among them, and no longer in Jerusalem. The ideological construction ignores historical dissonanced with its premise. Hence to be on the safe side, we go for the most neutral formulation, not the ideological formulation (in the view of editors like myself).Nishidani (talk) 07:41, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
If we're talking about a homeland, I think the Zionists might have a case for calling it a re-establishment, because the notion of whether a region constitutes a homeland depending on the Zionists themselves. But if we're talking about a modern state, it's unequivocally an establishment, because there was no prior modern state to justify reestablishment. So why not refer to the modern state as an establishment, while later in the article, we refer to the homeland as a reestablishment, in line with the Zionist perspective this article purports to describe? BabyJonas (talk) 19:35, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
There is no doubt that State of Israel was not re-established, since Israel never was a modern democratic state before. The word "re-established" is used in the article 2 times (and once again in a direct quote) to describe Zionists' intention to have a homeland for the Jewish people in the roughly the same place that once was the homeland of the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites.WarKosign 21:27, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
"Roughly" indeed. Jordan could have been considered "roughly" the place that once was the homeland of the Jews, for example, the Tribe of Gad. Now lets assume Emir Abdullah I of Jordan established the Emirate of Palestine, while Jordan was left for Jewish settlement. Could we really consider Zionist goals then, to "re-establish" their national homeland in "Jordanea"? I know the land west of the river is more historically connected to the Jews than the eastern side, but the comparison strikes an understanding that this argument is not logical at all. As far as I am reading, the users who are against "re-establishment" are providing several historical and scholarly evidence while the pro-"re-establishment" term users are just busy restating the same argument, which is "roughly" correct. Makeandtoss (talk) 21:44, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
Makeandtoss, I don't think geography is relevant to the isolated question of establishment or re-establishment. Focusing entirely on the terminological dispute, one can re-establish a state for a people, regardless of where the state is located. But regardless, if we have a way of incorporating both, why not do both? BabyJonas (talk) 21:55, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
It is relevant. Prior to the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1920, there were no defined borders of "Palestine". So in the Belfour declaration of 1917, which "Palestine" exactly were they talking about? The dashed blue line is the 1919 Zionist Organization proposal at the Paris Peace Conference, including almost all populated Jordanian cities. [6]. "Roughly" doesn't work here. Not to mention the Philistines. Makeandtoss (talk) 22:01, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
You can re-establish a state in a different location, but the context here implies that modern state of Israel is just the modern version of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, including its population. Makeandtoss (talk) 22:04, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

)

The Elephant in the Room The definition of Zionism should per policy come from Zionism's original declared aim. The aim set forth in the foundational document of Zionism, the Basel programme:

Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine.

It remodulates the Balfour Declaration in the same way. The latter stated the aim was for

the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

So how on earth do we get the odd version on this page, with its 'Land of Israel' and 're-establilshment' jargon? I.e. We have

Zionism . .a political movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Palestine, Canaan or the Holy Land

Where in the official documentation of the Zionist founders does this 're-establishment' phrasing and 'Land of Israel' wording emerge? Nishidani (talk) 22:05, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Nowhere, I believe enough evidence was provided against the usage of "re-establishment". Makeandtoss (talk) 22:12, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
From what little I've seen, the typical language is not re-establishment, but of "restoration" or "return," which is broadly synonymous with the idea of a re-establishment. If we want to portray the truth about Zionism, this seems to be necessary. You can quibble over the term "re-establishment," but I don't know if there is any basis to deny the concept represented by terms like return and restoration. BabyJonas (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
[7], [8] Basis to deny this is that they are ignored by most reliable sources, even primary sources like the ones Nishdani showed!! Makeandtoss (talk) 00:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
I'm not talking about "re-establishing". I'm arguing for the broader concept engendered by language like "return" and "restoration" which might be captured in the term "re-establishing". Has Nishidani provided sufficient evidence refuting that there is no broader concept that is captured by language like "return" and "restoration"? BabyJonas (talk) 00:19, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Nishdani doesn't have to. WP:BURDEN Makeandtoss (talk) 00:28, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Then why did you bring up his sources? Nevermind. Let's leave aside the burden-of-proof hot-potato and take seriously the question of whether this broader concept has a role in Zionism or not. Here's one source: Edward Said's Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims (Social Text No. 1 (Winter, 1979), pp. 7-58):
The three ideas that depend on each other in Hess and Eliot-and later in almost every Zionist thinker or ideologist-are (a) the non-existent Arab inhabitants, (b) the complementary Western-Jewish attitude to an "empty" territory, and (c) the restorative Zionist project, which would repeat by rebuilding a vanished Jewish State and combine it with modern elements like disciplined, separate colonies, a special agency for land acquisition, etc.
Note the strength of Said's claim: the restorative Zionist project are present not only in the work of Hess and Eliot, but later in almost every Zionist thinker or ideologist.
Elsewhere in the paper he cites Hess' Rome and Jerusalem (1862):
What we have to do at present for the regeneration of the Jewish nation is, first, to keep alive the hope of the political rebirth of our people, and, next, to reawaken that hope where it slumbers. When political conditions in the Orient shape themselves so as to permit the organization of a beginning of the restoration of the Jewish state, this beginning will express itself in the founding of Jewish colonies in the land of their ancestors, to which enterprise France will undoubtedly lend a hand. France, beloved friend, is the savior who will restore our people to its place in universal history. Just as we once searched in the West for a road to India, and incidentally discovered a new world, so will our lost fatherland be rediscovered on the road to India and China that is now being built in the Orient.
Note the language: rebirth, restoration. Another quote, from the paper, this is Said himself:
One needs to repeat that what in Zionism served the no doubt fully justified ends of Jewish tradition, saving the Jews as a people from homelessness and anti-Semitism, and restoring them to nationhood, also collaborated with those aspects of the dominant Western culture (in which Zionism exclusively and institutionally lived) making it possible for Europeans to view non-Europeans as inferior, marginal, and irrelevant.
Said's analysis here tells us, in no uncertain terms, that at least one of the ends of Zionism was restoring them to nationhood.
What should we make of all this? We should acknowledge two things:
1. that we've been too focused on the word usage "re-establishment" and forgotten to take a broader, nuanced picture of the concept behind the word, and
2. once we look at the broader concept, rather than the word, we see its fingerprints all over Zionism, under the language of rebirth and restoration.
BabyJonas (talk) 03:48, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Please note the words "in almost every Zionist thinker or ideologist" in your quotation, as they fatally undermine your case. The fact that this idea is an essential part of the Zionist position is exactly why we must not write it in Wikipedia's voice. That conclusion doesn't even depend on whether it is true or not. The rules require us to describe ideological positions as the opinions of those holding them, and we are forbidden from taking sides. Zerotalk 04:07, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

My comment was to engage with one specific line of discussion: The claim that no sources support the idea that Zionism is characterized by re-establishment. Here we have a critical source (Edward Said) who emphatically describes Zionism in these terms.

Your point is something else: That we must not write it in Wikipedia's voice. I personally have a similar, but more nuanced view:

  • (1)If we are talking about the modern nation-state, it's establish, not re-establish.
  • (2)If we are talking about homeland, it's re-establish, not establish.
  • (3) If we are describing the Zionist perspective, it's re-establish, not establish.
  • (4) If we are describing the Wikipedia perspective, given NPOV, it's establish.

BabyJonas (talk) 06:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Edward Said cited Moses Hess, who wrote over 3 decades before the doctrine known as Zionism was formulated. Said is describing an ideology, not a reality. The foundational documents in German and English speak of Palestine, not Land of Israel. Essentially you agree with the points made above regarding Wikipedia's WP:NPOV, which requires us to ascribe to Zionism the aim formally outlined by its founders, namely:

"Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine. For the attainment of this purpose, the Congress considers the following means serviceable: (1) the promotion of the settlement of Jewish agriculturists, artisans, and tradesmen in Palestine; (2) the federation of all Jews into local or general groups, according to the laws of the various countries; (3) the strengthening of the Jewish feeling and consciousness; (4) preparatory steps for the attainment of those governmental grants which are necessary to the achievement of the Zionist purpose.

Herzl commented in his diary:

“Were I to sum up the Basle Congress in a word - which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly - it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State.”

The Second Congress explicitly spoke of the colonization of Palestine
The Homeland concept only starts much later, when the endorsement of the British Government is achieved, and intense lobbying then takes place to insert 'ancestral homeland' and 're-establishment' in language drafted on the issue by the Great Powers and the League of Nations around 1922. Even then, 'Palestine' the default term, being neutral and not religious, emerges in Zionist thinking as not 'the Jewish homeland' of Judea, but by 1923 it encompasses in the Carlsbad conference, a claim to all of Transjordan, and Palestine, just as Chaim Weizmann admitted in 1919 that the northern border of this 'home' would be set not by criteria of establishing Jews in the area they once dwelt in(ancestral homeland), but by economic calculations, and hence would extend into Lebanon (Litani river) and Syria (Yarmuk river), etc.etc. In short, Zionism's later public language is all rosily religious and ethnic rights ideology for international consumption, speaking of 'reclaiming' a specific lost area', but its real aims were, and this accounts for its success, were meticulously grounded on an extremely secular pragmatic analysis of resources and demographics to carry a projected large part of world Jewry, completely indifferent to the actual historical realities of ancient Israel.
So we go for the original classical language of Zionism, and should not tinker with later educational indoctrination which speaks of a 'Land of Israel' or 'reestablishing' an ancestral state. Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Can you summarize exactly what it is you are arguing for? Is it just the wording in the lede? Or are you making a more sweeping claim that no mention of re-establishment should be mentioned whatsoever in the article? BabyJonas (talk) 07:21, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
I am noting, as do others, that the definition in the lead is a piece of political rhetoric that does not reflect the declared purpose of Zionism in its classic formulation from 1897 to 1917, when the project found official endorsement. Classical Zionism did not speak of 're-establishment' or the 'Land of Israel'. It might help you to reflect on this statement, as it is subsequently outlined on the same page:In 1948, the State of Israel regained its independence and sovereignty. The following remarks aim at deleting the ‘re’ in ‘regained’. By no means does that make the present State of Israel less independent or sovereign. The scholar,Ernst Axel Knauf, starts out by making a statement which almost everybody would disattentively read and nod at, and then pulls its assumptions apart by showing home a-historical and slipshod the premises it contains are.Nishidani (talk) 08:22, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for clarifying. And you believe all the official, stated literature on Zionism unequivocally repudiates the notion of "redefinition"? Does it render the language clearly incorrect, or is it just not the preferred language to use? BabyJonas (talk) 17:33, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Zionism has an immense literature of official and unofficial declarations. It's not a matter of Zionism repudiating this or that, but how Zionism defined its purpose, as stated in all historical books on the topic for the period indicated. The language we have is someone's POV spin, a widely circulated meme about the religious definition of Palestine as the 'Land of Israel', and the idea that somehow in all of Palestine there was once a Jewish homeland. It is true that Jews had a homeland in Palestine, so did a dozen other peoples, including Samaritans, Arabs (from at least the 4th century BCE), Phoenicians, Aramaeans, Idumeans, Edomites and the dozen tribes, Amorites, Hurrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, etc.etc.etc., and the heartland of the Jewish Palestinian population after the 7th century BCE was in Judea and its hinterlands. If Zionism had been less given over to myth, and precise, it would have said it aspired to re-establish the ancestral home in Judea, and perhaps more boldly, Samaria,though the latter had an estimated population of 500,000 Samaritans, not Jews in Talmudic terms, through most of that period. In stating the homeland in Zionism is in the Land of Israel, it is also implied that the homeland of the Jews was not Palestine, but the territory from Lebo Hamath to the Brook of Egypt and east to the Euphrates river, which was not what Herzl and earlier Zionists said. Throughout nearly all of its history (excluding the David Solomon romantic fiction's spin of a Dual Monarchy, for which there is zero archaeological or epigraphic evidence) it was subject to foreign powers. This is known to all scholars of antiquity but not to Zionist or many editors here. So the language used is not factual but distorts in simplifying a very complex situation in the ancient world. None of this alters the fact that Jews have a profound cultural attachment to that land and its Jewish history. The simple thing is just to stick to the official Zionist definition of their aims, and not try to spin history one way or another.Nishidani (talk) 19:03, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
I see your point, but my question is this: Are you arguing that the official Zionist definition unequivocally rules out any notion of re-establishment or the like? I want to drill down into whether the official Zionist definition is in clear contradiction to the claim of re-establishment. BabyJonas (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
The whole sentence we have is a concoction by editors. On Wikipedia we follow source language. The source language for Zionism is in its official deliberations on aims set forth down to 1917, duly set forth. Anyone can construct a definition that challenges this: i.e., Zionism is an neo-colonial movement which aims to expel the indigenous people of Palestine from their homeland and replace it with Jews from anywhere on the planet, on the basis of a Biblical fantasy and a rabbinical tradition. A lot of people would define it thus, and have solid evidence to interpret what it does that way. We don't use that, as we don't invent the concoction we have. We use reliable sources.Nishidani (talk) 20:31, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Okay. I'm not defending the sentence or concoctions. I'm trying to get at the question of whether this sentence explicitly and directly contradicts the definition of Zionism laid out in official Zionist literature. That's still not answered here. BabyJonas (talk) 20:37, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

It seems clear from this discussion that there is no consensus for using the terms "re-" establish and "ancient homeland" in Wikipedia's neutral voice. If anyone disagrees with this interpretation of consensus, please set out where you believe consensus exists. Oncenawhile (talk) 14:41, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I will leave this another week. If consensus is not demonstrated, any such terms in wikipedia's neutral voice will be removed. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:24, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
Neutrality is determined by reliable sources. Both re-established and homeland are supported by reliable sources, thus they will stay. The majority on this page support it as is, and any lack of consensus would result in the article staying as is. (Incidentally, the terms used by founding zionists were restoration and return). All the best. Drsmoo (talk) 11:03, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

re-establishment is closer to what Zionist had in mind. The sentence is about the Zionist view I don’t see a problem. Obviously anti-Zionist will have a problem with the wording. But they already get copious coverage. I actually don’t care that much since anyone reading it will read re-establishment even if it says establishment.Jonney2000 (talk) 17:00, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Oncenawhile, no. A lack of consensus isn't invoked as a reason to justify changing the article. Lack of consensus is invoked as a reason to not implement a change. Don't edit those terms out of the article until further discussion has been had please. BabyJonas (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

The wording

Making a new section since I can't follow this page's layout anymore. As for the wording of the definition of zionism- I agree that the simplest definition is the establishment of a jewish state in palestine--- but it can't be ignored that "palestine" is used differently now. Take for example the Blackstone memorial. "Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews? … These provinces, as well as Romania, Montenegro, and Greece, were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?" Ahem. So, yeah. It can't just say "palestine". But I also think re-establishment is problematic. Jewish sovereignty is objectively being reestablished. (heh it's funny my computer says that's not a typo) But the re-establishment of a jewish state.... well, that's anachronistic. The jews didn't have westphalian sovereignty. Anyway, here was my proposal: Zionism (Hebrew: צִיּוֹנוּת Tsiyyonut IPA: [t͡sijo̞ˈnut] after Zion) is a nationalist political movement of the Jews that supports the establishment of a modern Jewish state in the historic Land of Israel (roughly corresponding to Palestine, Canaan or the Holy Land). Thoughts? --Monochrome_Monitor 04:03, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Palestine is the common English term for the region in scholarly sources. Land of Israel is a religious term that a. doesn't correspond with with the place that Israel came to be in, and b. isn't used nearly as often in scholarly sources. So, yeah, you can't say historic Land of Israel like that's the common English term. nableezy - 05:47, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Note that current stable version of the lead says "re-establishment of a Jewish homeland", which I understand as Jewish sovereignty and not a reference to the modern state. It goes on to say "the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel", which imo also does not carry any religious subtext. The mention in the second paragraph says " re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel". I think it's acceptable to change one of them to "Re-establishing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine", and remove redundant repetition. WarKosign 06:48, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
The current version, Id leave questions of stability out of it as it kind of obviously is not stable, doesnt make a whole lot of sense. re-establishment of a Jewish homeland ... the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel. Whose definition of Land of Israel? The definition that includes Sinai and parts of Jordan? And why use a Jewish homeland? Because I dont think that was actually the aim, a homeland doesnt necessarily include a state with sovereignty and all its attendant privileges. An able army for example. Zionism's aims were very specifically the creation of a state, so say state. Which precludes the use of re in re-establish. And further, the argument of Land of Israel, this is the English Wikipedia. Eretz Israel may often be used in Hebrew history books for the time and place under discussion here, but in English the preferred term remains Palestine, something that has been repeatedly documented by much more able editors than me. nableezy - 07:39, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Eretz Israel has always been a religious term, and a religious concept, whose territorial bounds were vigorously disputed. It cannot be in the text. The simple solution is to define Zionism as its proponents defined it in the negotiated protocols regarding the purpose of the movement, both at the Zionist conventions, and the Balfour Declaration. By sticking to the letter of intent of Zionist, one avoids controversy and futile debates.Nishidani (talk) 08:02, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Eretz Israel is a religious term, "territory defined as the historic Land of Israel" is far less so. WarKosign 08:17, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
(a) no one can agree on its definition, there are endless rabbinical disputes over this (b) the 'historic land of Israel' itself is indefinite: what's it refer to? the putative land extent of The United Kingdom of Israel for which no archaeological evidence has been found in 5 decades of extensive study, and which itself is a religious construct beautifully illustrated in our wiki mapping as though it were an ascertained historical reality? Or was it the Hasmonean Kingdom, meaning Zionists intended establishing a homeland from Gaza to Syria and the Transjordan, beyond Palestine? All of this pointlessness can only be resolved by sticking to the explicit declarations, meaning Palestine without glosses, used in the foundational documents of the movement and accepted by the declarations made by the Great Powers at that time.Nishidani (talk) 08:35, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
The terms used in early Zionist statements were "restoration" and "return". The definition from the Oxford English Dictionary is "A movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel." In Brittanica it's "Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel”)." None of this is controversial in any way despite some editors pretending it is due to WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT. Drsmoo (talk) 09:27, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
The Oxford Dictionary, like the Britannica, is now very responsive to reader input, of course. I'ìve even seen the latter's online version swiping stuff from Wikipedia. The Britannica is useless also because it seems have too interactive. The Oxford English Dictionary's full extended definition, the scholarly version, is:

A movement among modern Jews having for its object the assured settlement of their race upon a national basis in Palestine; after 1948 concerned chiefly with the development of the State of Israel.The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1989 vol.XX, p.812 col.1

This means Zionism has 2 aspects, pre and post 1948. We should have no trouble accepting therefore part 2 of this definition. Part one is determinable from the official literature for the Zionist movement negotiating the settlement. MM accepted 'establishment' as do several others. Nishidani (talk) 09:35, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Both Oxford and Brittanica are highly reliable. One can see the authors of Brittanica articles btw. If one needed any confirmation of the IJUSTDONTLIKEIT quality of the argument I would say the attack on prominent sources serves as a good example. (Though the denial of Jewish reverence for Israel was hilarious as well) Drsmoo (talk) 09:45, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
(a) You should link to the articles, or give the page no. of a common reference book, if you wish to discuss this. (b) Encyclopædia Britannica Online, from the moment it adopted wiki procedures of accepting user contributions, lends itself, on sensitive topics, to manipulation. As I have noted, in some articles it sounds like Wikipedia, because external contributors pick stuff off this site, which is not reliable. (c) As to the OED, I cited it, and you ignored the citation. (d) Our best sources are academic works specializing in the history of Zionism. I cited 2 pages from a Zionist scholar, Walter Laqueur, who wrote a book on the topic, who said a 'Jewish state' was not the primary option of mainstream Zionists, and the edit was immediately reverted.Nishidani (talk) 10:34, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Your description of Britannica is incorrect. All information is vetted by experts in the field before being published. Both Britannica and Oxford are reliable sources on Wikipedia and the references are already in the article.Drsmoo (talk) 10:58, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
That doesn't stop it from lending itself to manipulation: if several readers complain and, citing sources that exist for their favoured language, succeed in convincing 'experts in the field' (who? - many experts in the field don't use this language and stick to the original texts of Zionism without adjusting their language) to alter the language, such changes may only reflect, as often as not, the need of an encyclopedia struggling to retain its market share to satisfy its readership. On the Oxford English Dictionary stop ignoring the problem. I have all 20 volumes. It's my bedside companion, and what I quoted is as I quoted it. Nishidani (talk) 15:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
That's a nice story, however Britannica is a reliable source and written by experts. As was noted, the attack on prominent sources is indicative of IJUSTDONTLIKEIT Drsmoo (talk) 16:44, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Youre acting as if eminent sources dont use establish instead of re-establish. I think you know that isnt the case. nableezy - 20:43, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


I changed my mind I would object to removing reestablished. ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA uses reestablished extensively. I included quotes from a few entries. Definition of Zionism: end of volume pictures, Moses Hess, Theodor Herzl, Music, Aliyah and Jewish philosophy

In his opening address to the Congress on August 23, 1903, Herzl assured the delegates that he had no other objective in mind than Palestine. “There is no change and there will be no change in our attitude toward the Land of our Forefathers,” he declared. The speech was greeted with great enthusiasm. Years later, Weizmann acknowledged in his Trial and Error that the British letter had reestablished the national and juridical identity of the Jewish people.[1]

The gifted orator and pamphleteer Gabriel *Riesser denied the existence of a distinct Jewish nationality, but Moses Hess, parting company with the Socialist doctrinaires, strongly affirmed Jewish nationalism in his Rom und Jerusalem (1862; Rome and Jerusalem, 1918), which called for the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Zion. [2]

It was aliyah that re-created the Jewish commonwealth in the Land after the Babylonian Exile, provided the community with some of its prominent spiritual leaders during the Second Temple and subsequent periods, preserved and repeatedly renewed the Jewish presence in Ereẓ Israel during the periods of Byzantine, Arab, Mamluk, and Ottoman rule, and reestablished the State of Israel in modern times.[3]

The term Zionism first appeared at the end of the 19th century to denote the movement to reestablish the Jewish homeland in Erez Israel. Over the past century, the nation of Israel has experienced one of the most miraculous transformations in human history. Nowhere is this more clearly revealed than in the vast developments in Israel’s architecture and urban landscape. Offered here are some stunning before-and-after views of the growth of Israel as well as some of the faces of Israel’s citizens, who hail from more than one hundred countries.[4][5]

A new leaf in national music was turned by the generation of composers who witnessed the reestablishment of the Jewish state in Israel (for the artistic problems to be overcome and the ideas and tracks followed by them, see *Israel, State of: Cultural Life). [6]

Antisemitism also produced in certain thinkers a despair of the promise of emancipation, which, together with the emergence of modern nationalism and classical

Jewish messianic expectations, produced Zionism which advocated the reestablishment of a Jewish state, preferably in Ereẓ Israel. In its philosophic component modern Jewish thought followed the main currents of modern and contemporary Western philosophy, rationalism, Kantianism, idealism, existentialism, and pragmatism. There were also influences derived from British empiricism and positivism.[7]

Jonney2000 (talk) 18:01, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

  1. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 9 p64
  2. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 7 p512
  3. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 10 p329
  4. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 11 p830 end of volume, Zionism: photos of Israel
  5. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 21 p698 end of volume, Zionism: photos of Israel
  6. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 14 p687
  7. ^ ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 16 p92
Would it be too much to ask for a list, or a chart of reasons pro and con re-establishment? I, as well as others, would probably like to see them side by side and facilitate a conclusion on this issue that will make everybody happy. Is that a reasonable request? It might also be a nice short-cut to avoid long reiterations of old points. BabyJonas (talk) 18:31, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
I have a problem with "homeland". A homeland cannot be established or disestablished. Palestine was always the Jewish homeland- it's where the Jewish people originate. So, I think it should say "Jewish state".--Monochrome_Monitor 19:19, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Jonney, do you think my edit removing re was a revert? I don't think it was. I wasn't doing it to undo what anyone wrote. I was modifying the content on the page and deleted one prefix among other changes to the sentence. --Monochrome_Monitor 19:21, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm jumping in here after a hiatus from the Project. We shouldn't seek to solve this issue, but to describe it. Therefore, we should state in Wikipedia's neutral tone what isn't in dispute, and then describe the dispute, such as it is. One option is to use "... to establish a national home for Jews in Palestine. Religious Zionists consider this a re-establishment of an ancient state, while critics of Zionism see it as a colonial project aimed at dispossessing the Palestinian inhabitants." --Dailycare (talk) 17:40, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Tentatively, I don't mind a solution in this vein. BabyJonas (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
It misrepresents the sources. Far more than only "religious Zionists" consider this a re-establishment. WarKosign 22:14, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Could we have a compilation of the various sources which support each interpretation? That would perhaps at least give us a bird's eye view of the evidence for each position. I say this as someone who sees merits and drawbacks for each choice. BabyJonas (talk) 02:34, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
This can be found in the section below Drsmoo (talk) 02:39, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Sources for Establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine

If so, how would we define who is a Zionist, starting from the emergence of the Zionist movement as inspired by Theodor Herzl and his associates? Here is the definition: A Zionist is a person who desires or supports the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, which in the future will become the state of the Jewish people. This is based on what Herzl said: “In Basel I founded the Jewish state.” A. B. Yehoshua, 'Defining Zionism: The Belief That Israel Belongs to the Entire Jewish People,' Haaretz 21 May 2013

    • Nota bene. he says it cannot be used for anything earlier than Herzl, like Moses Hess cited above from the EJ.
    • Note that for our sources on the page the first is not accessible. The second is false (Judenstaat All that text says is (a)'The Jewish state is a world need’ (Herzl) ‘one this point the practical men were united with the dreamers. Palestine alone came into the picture for a national concentration of the Jews (40.41)). This is the usual curse of Wikipedia. Editors all discuss at length a definition, defending it, without actually checking if the existing sources really justify the one we have.Nishidani (talk) 21:26, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Sources for Reestablishment/Restoration/Return in Zionist thinking and definitions of Zionism"

"Our return to the land of our fathers, foretold by Holy Writ, sung by poets, desired with tears by the poor of our people, and derided by pitiable mockers, is an event of the greatest political interest to all the powers concerned in the affairs of Asia. “ “It goes without saying that the Jewish people can have no other goal than Palestine and that, whatever the fate of the proposition may be, our attitude toward the land of our fathers is and shall remain unchangeable.”

  • (2) Ahad Ha'am - Anticipations and Survivals, 1891

“This national hope, as embodied in the idea of the return to Palestine, affords, in a much later age, an instance of a "survival.” “It was a long exile of much study and much prayer, in which the national hope for the return to Zion was never forgotten.” “For now that the religious ideal had conquered the national, the nation could no longer be satisfied with little, or be content to see in the return to Zion merely its own national salvation.”

Ahad Ha'am - The Jewish State and Jewish Problem, 1897

“And now Judaism finds that it can no longer tolerate the galuth form which it had to take on, in obedience to its will-to-live, when it was exiled from its own country, and that if it loses that form its life is in danger. So it seeks to return to its historic centre, in order to live there a life of natural development, to bring its powers into play in every department of human culture, to develop and perfect those national possessions which it has acquired up to now, and thus to contribute to the common stock of humanity, in the future as in the past, a great national culture, the fruit of the unhampered activity of a people living according to its own spirit.”

“With the nineteenth century we come to efforts which are neither strictly political nor yet miraculous. The Jew begins to return to Palestine, but to return as an individual.” “With Sir Moses Montefiore, whose journeys to Palestine began in the eighteen-thirties, Western Jewry began to occupy itself constructively with the Jewish restoration. There was established a fund for the cultivation of land in Palestine by the Jews. Sir Moses had the idea of obtaining extensive concessions, and so bringing about 'the return of thousands of our brethren to the lands of Israel.’”

"The origins of Political Zionism. This goal is not to be attained immediately. It lies in a near or a more distant future. It is an ideal, a wish, a hope, just as Messianic Zionism was and is. But the new Zionism, which is called political, is distinguished from the old religious Messianic Zionism in this, that it repudiates all mysticism, and does not rely upon the return to Palestine to be accomplished by a miracle, but is resolved to bring it about through its own efforts.” “The Jewish nationality - condition sine qua non. The one point that excludes the possibility of an understanding between Zionists and non-Zionistic Jews, probably for ever, is the question of Jewish nationality. Whoever maintains and believes that the Jews are not a nation, cannot in truth be a Zionist: he cannot attach himself to a movement which is only justified by its wish to create a normal condition of existence for a people living and suffering under normal conditions. But, on the contrary, he who is convinced that the Jews are a nation, must necessarily be a Zionist, as only the return to our own land can preserve the Jewish people, universally hated, persecuted, and oppressed, from physical and spiritual decay.”

"America. September 5th. Conference of Rabbis resolved to appeal to various powers, particularly President Wilson, asking them to give their consideration to the question of the Restoration of Palestine to the Jewish people." "England. In October, Zionist Demonstrations took place all over the country. In seventy-one synagogues, one hundred and twenty-three lodges and associations, and in fifty-four Zionist societies, resolutions were passed requesting the British Government to use its best endeavours to bring about a Restoration of Palestine as a National Home for the Jewish people" "The [Petrograd] Conference carried the following resolutions : — "Considering first that the Jewish people, in view of its disposition and dispersion all over the world, can recreate for itself conditions for the normal development of its national, cultural, and economic life, only through the restoration of a national autonomous centre in its historic home, Palestine. Secondly, that the Jewish nation has never severed its ties with its ancient home, and has always longed for it, and that its moral and historic right to Palestine is incontestable and irremovable"

  • (6) Jewish Encyclopedia, Zionism, 1906

“Historically, the hope of a restoration, of a renewed national existence, and of a return to Palestine has existed among the Jewish people from olden times. After the first Exile, the Jews in Babylonia looked forward continually to the reestablishment of their ancient kingdom. However much the Jews spread from land to land, and however wide the dispersion and consequent Diaspora became, this hope continued to burn brightly; and from time to time attempts were made to realize it. The destruction of the Temple by Titus and Vespasian (70 C.E.) was perhaps the most powerful factor in driving the Jews east, south, and west. Nevertheless, in a short time the hope of a restoration was kindled anew. The risings under Akiba and Bar Kokba (118) soon followed; and the Jews drenched the soil of Palestine with their blood in the vain attempt to regain their national freedom against the heavy hand of the Roman power. Despite these checks, the idea of the restoration persisted and became a matter of dogmatic belief; as such it finds expression in Jewish literature, both prose and poetic.”

  • (7) Encyclopedia Judaica, Zionism, 2007

"The modern term Zionism first appeared at the end of the 19th century, denoting the movement whose goal was the return of the Jewish people to Ereẓ Israel."

Encyclopedia Judaica, Land of Israel: Aliyah and Absorption, 2007

"The beginnings of the modern Jewish return to the Land of Israel, which laid the foundations for the establishment of the State of Israel, were due to a combination of three causes: the age-old devotion of the Jews to their historic homeland and the hope of messianic redemption; the intensification of the intolerable conditions under which Jews lived in Eastern Europe; and the efforts of an active minority convinced that the return to the homeland was the only lasting and fundamental solution to the Jewish problem (see *Zionism )."

  • (8) Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, Nationalism and Ethnicity: Zionism and Israel, 2013

"The goal of Zionism, with minor and temporary deviations, has been the resettlement of the Jewish people to historic Palestine (a term for most purposes coterminous with the Land of Israel) and the reconstitution there of a Jewish national polity. "

  • (9) Oxford English Dictionary, Zionism, 2016

"A movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.”

  • (10) American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 2015

"A political movement that supports the maintenance and preservation of the state of Israel as a Jewish homeland, originally arising in the late 1800s with the goal of reestablishing a Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine." Drsmoo (talk) 04:57, 4 July 2016 (UTC)


Zionism (n) 1.a political movement for the establishment and support of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine, now concerned chiefly with the development of the modern state of Israel 2. a policy or movement for Jews to return to Palestine from the Diaspora

That has both! (Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition)--Monochrome_Monitor 12:39, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Note: I was wrong about the wording "jewish state". Zionism originally didn't necessarily want a state necessarily, just a national home in palestine. However I still think "homeland" is odd because it cannot be established, it just is.

Here's a gem of an article: [9] Note to Nish: "There are some who deny that there is such a thing as the Jewish people, but the denial is a modern innovation. Very rare is the non-Jew who thinks of Jews as merely a sect without national quality; and it is doubtful whether among the Jews themselves there could be found a single instance of such a denial much earlier than the second decade of the nineteenth century. The negation of Jewish nationality was first presented by German Jews as part of what is called the 'reform ' movement in German Jewry, which itself was hardly separable from the movement for Jewish political emancipation in that country. From Germany it spread to other lands, but it has never had much respect among any save a small minority of Jews, and it has never had any respect at all from non-Jews, except when political expediency made it convenient for a Gentile statesman or diplomat to invoke this strange dogma." Right now the sources imply that Zionism innovated the concept of the Jewish nation, but it actually revived it. I think that should be better reflected.--Monochrome_Monitor 12:39, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

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Conservatism

Why is this in project conservatism? Zionism isn't left or right. Sure in the US it's more associated with conservatives, but it used to be a left-wing view until about 1970.--Monochrome_Monitor 07:04, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

As a national return to "the way things were" (back where) and as necessary for protecting cultural and ethnic identity (in long scale of exile), yes in those contexts Zionism can be seen as conservative. It's not question of political economic right/left. See Conservatism, National and traditional, Cultural conservatism and social conservatism.-Yohananw (talk) 11:39, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

One sided view

"According to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Eretz Israel is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Hebrew and Greek Bibles and the Quran, respectively" a naive statement that attempts to ignore all the opposing views and interpretations on this issue. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:46, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

This is described as the view of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Do you believe this to be incorrect? Epson Salts (talk) 00:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Which opposing view ? Is there a view that according to either of the religion Eretz Israel was *not* promised to the Jews ? If there is such a view and it's prevalent enough to be mentioned please provide sources and we'll include it. There is nothing dubious about the fact that according to many believes in these religions the land was promised. WarKosign 07:30, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
BTW, according to WP:BRD while the discussion is ongoing the article remains in the state it was before your change, not in the state you wish it to be. WarKosign 07:31, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
I don't think BRD includes "dubious" tags. So basically you are saying that every believer in the Abrahamic religion is supposed to be a Zionist? And every non-Zionist Abrahamic follower is someone who doesn't understand his own religion? Neturei Karta [10] Haredim and Zionism, Religious anti-Zionism Anti-Zionism#Outside the Jewish community [11]? Makeandtoss (talk) 08:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Please read Neturei Karta#Beliefs. "Neturei Karta believe that the exile of the Jews can only end with the arrival of the Messiah, and that human attempts to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel are sinful". Believing in the fact that the promise was given is not the same as believing that one has to act to implement the promise.
Once again: do you have any sources contradicting the "dubious" statement ? WarKosign 09:31, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Well ok if you want to treat it that way, then this simple sentence needs to be clarified as this oversimplification is propagandic. As you mentioned the implementation part, there are other parts like how others believe that the promise was "cancelled"/etc.. --Makeandtoss (talk) 09:40, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Labour Zionism

I was reading the labor Zionism section of this article and noticed it neglected to mention anything about sabras. Sabras were so influential in labour Zionism and they set the example for many Jews. "The Sabras were a small homogeneous group who had influence beyond their numbers because they carried a standard of labor Zionism and became the reference group by which the rest of the Israeli society, in the country's early years, measured itself."(Almog XI)[1] Hashem98 (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2016 (UTC) Please let me know what you guys think about my changes on this talk page or my talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hashem98 (talkcontribs) 19:59, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Almog, Oz. The Sabra: The creation of the new Jew. p. XI.

Needless tagging

This article is littered with unnecessary 'citation needed' tags. I am doing the thankless task of cleaning up articles with 'cite' tags. When these tags are used by an editor to deprecate an article's overall rating for reasons other than WP source ref. standards, i.e. someone doesn't like the sourced facts or is otherwise at odds with the article's contents, rather than bothering to check if the whole body of a given paragraph is covered by a ref., that person is misusing the tag. I realize this article is about a controversial and sensitive subject. As such, I'm not removing the dubious tags, because in all honesty, I have no good faith, that this is purely a formal editorial problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bjhodge8 (talkcontribs) 18:22, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

This famous-infamous Weizmann-quote about the "hundred thousand of negroes"

There was a long debate, documented on page 11 of of the archive, about the authenticity of this quote, and its source. I think that I have now found the nearest to the actual source.
Noam Chomsky writes in his book The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians on page 481 (of the second edition, by Pluto Press, London), this:

Recently released records of the Jewish Agency Executive reveal, for example, the thinking of Chaim Weizmann after the Balfour declaration of 1917: "with regard to the Arab question - the British told me that there are several hundred thousand negroes there but that this matter has no significance" (quoted by Arthur Ruppin).20

The "20" leads us to note #20 to that chapter which says "Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamdina, Jerusalem, 1985), p. 140."
The latter is the document collection published by the Israeli historian Joseph Heller (born 1937) "The Struggle for the Jewish State. Zionist Politics, 1936—1948" at "The Zalman Shazar Center For The Furtherance Of The Study Of Jewish History" in Jerusalem, 1984, in hebrew language, ISBN 965-227-021-0, OCLC 24064867 and OCLC 959578132. This book begins with a 98 page article by Heller, followed by 432 pages of documents and 10 pages of an index. The list of documents spreads over 8 pages.
On pages 140 to 143 is a text authored by Arthur Ruppin, the German zionist, which actually does say what Noam Chomsky gives in his book "Fateful Triangle". A friend of mine who grew up in Israel confirmed me that. Unfortunately, he did not want to spend much time on this topic, so unfortunately I did not get the full title of Arthur Ruppin's text, neither the date written. But according to my friend, Ruppin - who lived or a decade or more in Palestina before the British published this "Balfour Declaration" for the purposes of the European war, and who knew about the social realities in Palestine -- that Ruppin asked Weizmann after the Balfour declaration about the obvious disregard of the majority Arab population of Palestine, and that Weitzmann answered with this famous quote. So it seems that Weitzman has not put it in writing, but that Arthur Ruppin quotes this from a verbal communication, and thus from memory.
I could put Ruppin's full text in Hebrew here if that could be useful to anybody. Or in Wikisource (I don't understand hebrew at all, but I have OCRed the text. ABBYY FineReader 12 helped...). Since Ruppin died in 1943, there is no more any copyright barrier for publishing that text. I understand, that the original text is in German language. --L.Willms (talk) 18:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Danke schön L.Willms - this is very interesting. Since it is out of copyright, could you post photographs of the four pages on commons?
Oncenawhile (talk) 20:33, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
The text is out of copyright, but images from Joseph Heller's book might not by. As I said above, I have run the text recognition over it. But maybe, I can produce a Dejavue file from the text, which is not a photographic reproduction of this 1984 published book. Let me see, what I can do. I would have to search for "MS Word to Dejavue" or "Open Office to Dejavue". --L.Willms (talk) 22:02, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
If Heller simply reproduced the now-out-of-copyright text, then his work was not "transformative", so he cannot claim any new copyright and his reproduction is itself out of copyright. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:22, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
I learned in the mean time, that this is a translation (from German) of a speech (or remarks) made by Arthur Ruppin at the May 20, 1936 session of the Jewish Agency Executive. Ruppin then recalled what Weizmann answered him when asked by Ruppin after the Balfour declaration. Ruppin distanced himself from that what he recalled from a conversation which took place long time earlier, but still reaffirmed his position (voiced also in published documents) that he would not accept to submit to an Arab majority -- the Zionists have strongly refused the British idea to call for general elections to an representative assembly of Palestine, as they had done in other colonial possessions (and be it only a consultative body). So, there is nothing put in writing by Weizmann himself with this quote, only the recollection of this by A. Ruppin, from memory. So, this quote is not worth very much. Anyway, such stated motives are nice, but one has also lots of statements especially by Ruppin claiming his will for a good relationship with the Arabs in Palestine. Proclaimed motives and aims are one thing, the actual course of action as dictated by the actual real cirmustances is another, and the latter is more important. That is, when an immigrating foreign body of people forms a parallel society in the immigration target, and aims (not just in proclamations, but in reality) to erect itself to the ruling stratum of that immigration target, the resistance of the original population is inevitable (Jabotinsky recognized this). But when the immigrating and conquering group of people is not able to really crush this resistance, then this colonisation attempt is doomed to failure. That are the facts on the ground after 130 years of immigration, after 100 years of conquest of Palestine by a European colonialist power, and nearly seven decades since the bloody founding war of the State of Israel, and 60 years after conquering the rest of colonial Palestine.
Coming back to this document by Arthur Ruppin, the German language original of this document is in the Central Zionist Archives (archive group S100), but that archive has some strict tems of use. And it seems that there is no way to get documents from there without visiting the archive's reading room in Jerusalem. I'll try to get out more about this document in a few days with the help of my friend who knows Hebrew. Maybe Heller published also other documents from the same session, and maybe some other participant commented on this purported Weizmann quote. But maybe also that somebody living in Jerusalem and reading this, can personally visit the archive and get Ruppin's document. --L.Willms (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

West Bank settler "Zionists"

The West Bank settlers ("hilltop youth") claim to be the vanguard of Zionism and the media describe them as Zionists. I had a discussion with a self described "Zionist" who opposes the "loony West Bank occupation". I came to this article looking for clarification on the meaning of "Zionism", but it seems to present Zionism as a historical phenomenon. I think there should be some material on what "Zionism" means in the 21st century. Perhaps the meaning of the word (according to how the word is used or understood) has changed. Keith McClary (talk) 05:58, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

From the lead: "Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism continues primarily to advocate on behalf of Israel and to address threats to its continued existence and security." See also Revisionist Zionism, briefly described in this article too. WarKosign 13:35, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Proponents of Zionism not Necessitating Israel

I think it is notable that many proponents of Zionism, especially modern advocates, stress that their belief in Zionism does not necessarily advocate the state of Israel, or a Jewish Homeland in that area, but Jewish self-determination and the existence of a Jewish Homeland in general, wherever that may be. I don't have the time to find sources at the moment, but I hope my note will be taken in good faith.

147.197.251.155 (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

POV pushing by Seraphimsystem

If someone could please revert this wikiwarrior... he added an entire paragraph quoting Main Kumpf, also changing "...founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century" for "founding of secular Jewish nationalist state during the 20th century." All of that without discussion, explanation or consensus, of course. You can see his POV agenda when he openly wrote this crap about Likud. Apparently he never read WP:Forum.--186.137.232.7 (talk) 02:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)4

His edit violated the discretionary sanctions, I am waiting for him to self-revert, otherwise he can risk getting reported/blocked. I don't want to revert because that might be a violation of DS as well. Sir Joseph (talk) 03:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
The caption edit may have been jargon, but it is technically correct, unlike the current caption which is patent nonsense (at least, to anyone with a background in political philosophy). If you all like it as it is, I don't care. Given how unbalanced all the Israel pages are, cherry picking, and overuse of partisan sources, and your denial of Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and mainstream academic consensus as a source for Likud's shoddy human rights record, I'm not going to take your POV pushing accusation seriously, because I know even you don't believe it.

Of course, Likud/Israel is currently being investigated by scholars of international law for a number of serious allegations, and I understand that it may be too soon to include this content. As for the quote from Mein Kampf, it may be WP:OR taken out of context, and without context I've decided it may be better to leave it out. Thanks for the comment. Seraphimsystem (talk) 10:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

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Should this not be merged with "Jewish supremacism"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.110.71 (talk) 02:47, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Joseph Nasi: Which Sultan?

Nasi was 16th century but Mehmed IV was 17th. So something is wrong.--Jrm2007 (talk) 09:36, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

"Roman-named"?

In the first sentence, why is it necessary to describe the word "Palestine" as "Roman-named"? When using any particular word in a sentence, one typically does not need to explicitly give the word's etymological origin. That's simply redundant and bizarre. This is obviously an ideological decision: the connotation is that because Palestine is Roman-named, and that the Roman control of Palestine was after the Jews' control,"Palestine" is not the "real" name in some sense. This is POV-pushing to delegitimize Palestinians and the existence of the Palestinians as a people. It should be removed. CompactSpacez (talk) 15:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Actually it is Greek-named, but indeed the comment is unnecessary. Please remove or strike out [removed], as it is a personal attack on your fellow editors and clearly violates WP:CIV. WarKosign 16:08, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the help. I have removed the comment you thought was offensive. CompactSpacez (talk) 23:45, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Great work! Nobody needs to know where the name came from. 88.65.41.238 (talk) 07:33, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
There is a section in relevant article dedicated to the name. It does not belong in this article. WarKosign 07:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 November 2017

There are three uses of trans_title which causes CS1 Errors. They should be changed to trans-title. Regards, 2A04:4540:1109:B201:841B:EEF7:BAE5:8A10 (talk) 21:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Done Thank you  — Ammarpad (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

loose phrasing

in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe

in reaction to 'anti-Semitism' and 'in reaction to 'exclusionary mationalist movements' is problematical. If you write that 'Zionism' was a reaction to 'exclusionary nationalism' you cannot but imply that it found any form of nationalism that excluded others repulsive, and that Zionism's answer somehow was different in kind. Many early Zionist sources and the histories of the movement outline that Zionism was an assertion of a claim to have the same rights as other nationalists, exclusionary or otherwise. It against did not formulate an 'inclusionary' nationalism, by 'reaction'. It took the general European nationalist model on board.

In part this fuck up comes from relying on just the words in one of the two sources (dozens exist) which relates to Palestinian versus Jewish nationalism of a latrer period.

Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose. As we have seen, Zionism itself arose in reaction to anti-Semitic and exclusionary nationalist movements in Europe. It would be perverse to judge Zionism as somehow less valid than European anti-Semitism or those nationalisms.

What the hell Gelvin, an otherwise good scholar, implied by this,('Zionism is as equally valid as anti-Semitism'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)is beyond my hermeneutic gifts. I'm sure he did not mean to state what he actually does state, but it means the source itself is not a good one for this argument,

My edit corrects this looseness by making the necessary distinction between Zionism and anti-Semitism,(one of total rejection) and Zionism and other nationalisms (imitative). All nationalisms are by definition exclusionary, and that adjective only made the text even more problematical than it need be. Nishidani (talk) 14:21, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Joseph Nasi did not convert to islam

The history section states that Joseph Nasi converted to Islam. I have not been able to locate any reliable source to support such a claim and have in fact found sources that mention him as an example of a Jew who managed to become influential without converting.

"Unlike Jews like Joseph Nasi and David Passi who never converted to Islam, Christian-European converts could be directly employed in various state offices in which they had a direct influence on the making and execution of policy." https://www.academia.edu/31672999/The_Sultan_s_Renegades_Christian-European_Converts_to_Islam_and_the_Making_of_the_Ottoman_Elite_1575_1610

"Jews such as Joseph Nasi rose... while remaining practicing Jews." https://books.google.com/books?id=CIPR5L5SAtYC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=Joseph+Nasi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaakovaryeh (talkcontribs) 08:51, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I see a source that also implies he didn't convert: "With the exception of physicians, he was probably the only Jew to be granted a regular rank within the Ottoman system along with the benifice which accompanied it. We might speculate that, had he converted to Islam, he may well have been a candidate for the position of Grand Vezir.." Since the existing source provided for the conversion is useless, I suggest you remove the claim. Zerotalk 09:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 Done I left the "conversion" source as a note, as an outlier. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

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Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 December 2017

The Terminology section has an error that says "text has italic markup" in the first line. Please fix this. Every875 Talk to me 19:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Done Onceinawhile (talk) 21:55, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 March 2018

To avoid WP:Sandwich, could somebody move the "Arab offensive, at the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war" picture above the previous paragraph that starts with "On May 14, 1948, at the end of the British mandate..."? Thanks.--יניב הורון (talk) 13:56, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Moved to address this and also to place the illustrations closer to the text they illustrate Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:08, 16 March 2018 (UTC)